Stephen Gauci / Shinya Lin / Adam Lane / Kevin Shea: Live At Scholes Street Studio

NYC tenor saxophonist Stephen Gauci has adopted the self-determination ethos with a vengeance. So prolific is he that his new recordings can seem like monthly updates. This set from December 2022 presents a working unit in a familiar haunt and under a familiar banner: Live At Scholes Street Studio. With so many releases having the same title, the individual albums are best differentiated by personnel. This time out the new face is pianist Shinya Lin who proves himself an empathetic presence.

Lin shows he has just the tools to shine in this febrile environment. He adopts a percussive approach, a darting stabbing staccato, but with enough accents of light and shade to impart a rhythmic dimension, generating a flexible framework that does not constrain Gauci's wilder wanderings. He heightens the impact further still when he distorts the timbre, clanking on dampened strings.

The reed man deploys what by now has become a recognizable blend to his followers, action-painted smears and splattered drops created from the extreme tonalities of his instrument. However, here he uses the altissimo register sparingly, at least until the multiphonic squall toward the end of the lengthy opening improvisation, which is catalyzed by an explosion of Cecil Taylor-like articulation and energy from Lin.

The pianist also fits in well with Gauci regulars bassist Adam Lane and drummer Kevin Shea. They all leave sufficient space to avoid crowding each other out, even on such a full on date as this. Lane in particular affirms why he is such an asset to any session, as he lays down a steady stream of muscular pizzicato invention. Even with bow in hand he is no slouch, careening across the fingerboard in superb counterpoint to the leader's blaring horn. Shea, an alumnus of self-styled anarchic bebop band Mostly Other People Do The Killing, excels at clattering momentum. He evokes an image of a train rattling along uneven track with assorted parts falling off along the bumpy way.

The 30-minute starter does it all, meaning that all that is left for the subsequent 9-minute closer is to reprise the same ingredients with, if anything, yet more intensity. On the album notes, Gauci suggests that his various quartet recordings should be regarded as part of an integral whole, in which his voice and concepts are reflected back at him through the playing of some of today's greatest musical personalities. Certainly this incendiary outing portrays Gauci in a more-than-favorable light, and his bandmates too.

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